Enabling SMEs Kyrgyzstan to bid for public contracts
Enabling SMEs in Kyrgyzstan to Bid for Public Contracts
April 11, 2018
Our EBRD project, “Facilitating the participation of SMEs in public tenders”, which IBLF Global is managing with our partners GovRisk, is continuing apace. The first half has been completed. With the help of our local team of experts and international consultants, we reviewed the existing e-procurement system and surveyed Kyrgyz companies to identify what the main obstacles were to broader participation in public tenders. Our solution is to create a system with a user-friendly interface and simpler bidding procedures. The simplified system will avoid unnecessary bureaucracy and will encourage SMEs to participate in public contracts with confidence and trust in the system. Key target indicators include reducing the number of steps companies have to take to submit a bit, and the number of days and documents on average which it takes them to do this. Our expectation is that this will increase competition and reduce the opportunities for corruption in public tendering.
We have also drafted new laws and regulations which will permit the new system to function. These have been submitted to the Kyrgyz Government for approval and will pass through Parliament later in the year.
We are now beginning part 2 of the project: the programmers in Bishkek are hard at work developing the simplified system which will be launched as a pilot in Bishkek and Kara-Suu in the south of Kyrgyzstan. Once the system is fully launched towards the end of 2018, we will roll out a comprehensive training programme for potential suppliers and the government purchasing organisations throughout the country.
